Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Tea as a blood sugar preventive

The best way to slash the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is to drink at least four cups of tea a day. A study of European populations found that people in countries that drank four cups a day had a 20 percent lower risk of developing the illness. The study found that benefits seemed to be most obvious among heavy tea drinkers as drinking a mere one to three cups a day didn't lower the risk.

Tea consumption may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by influencing glucose digestion, glucose uptake, and by protecting beta-cells from free-radical damage. This beneficial effect would be due to the polyphenols present in tea.

The research was done in 26 centers in eight European countries, and consisted of 12,403 incident type 2 diabetes cases plus thousands of others without the disease.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Wondering if supplementing tea with rice milk, stevia, or agave would impact the effectiveness of tea as a deterrent to Type 2 Diabetes?

Susan Reed

nutrocon@aol.com said...

Unsweetened rice milk or stevia would have a neutral effect. Agave we would suggest avoiding.